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How about "Empower humanity & Not depower everyone else" school of thought?

One of my biggest concerns with Technocracy is that they made themselves indispensable and started only to empower themselves, working as a watchdogs to weak, frail and apathetic humanity. Which they made that way.

Order of Reason has enough good intentions to turn the other way, given the right circumstances. And as you said, there are not enough of people, who think that fairies should die and other cultures need to be subsumed. Even within Order of Reason.

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For the most part, I could easily see Order of Reason folk cooperating with some factions of the Fae, especially if opposed by a mutual threat (such as Tremere Warlocks or Nephandi). The Celestial Masters and the Craftmasons seem the most likely to deal with fae. The Solificati and the Taftani are also likely contacts and allies, with some comparable interests and focus.

To me, the greatest comparable elements among mages of the time are House Bjornaer (Kinfolk Hermetic mages), House Merinita (Fae-blooded Hermetic mages), Dreamspeakers (with local flavor), Seers of Chronus, Verbena and the Crafts of the Ngoma, and the Taftani.

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I will mention the largely unsuccessful effort to establish the Hermetic House Golo in, IIRC, the late medieval period, which blended traditional Hermetic Arts and theories with the Aetheric Philosophies of the Kitab al-Alacir manuscript which later birthed the Sons of Ether. In this sort of alternate setting, I can easily see this effort being far more successful, with House Golo becoming a Renaissance era version of the SoE.

Also, back when I finally started investigating Ars Magica more, I was mildly disappointed at how most of the Houses I found most interesting had ended up dumped into Ex Misc. Besides Meritina and their blend of nature and faerie magics, you've got the artists and philosophers of Jerbiton and their mastery of Ars Cupidae (arts of desire/social magic), Criamon and their weird quasi-orientalist focus on prophecy, divination and the Great Enigma, and Verditius with their fun magical objects and craftwork.

One group that might fit in this setting, depending on how far back you want to go with the divergence point, is House Diedne, who were a mix of Roman Hermetic Arts and ancient Druidism. Sadly, I don't think they were ever really developed to any degree, being to Ars Magica what the Salubri were to 1st ed Vampire, only less so.

And, as much as I dislike the group (for the simple reason that there is literally nothing they offer that the Verbena don't already give you), the Sisters of Hippolyta would probably also work in this sort of setting. Especially if you wanted to go hog wild with the alternate fantasy-esque North America and have the ancient Amazons having sailed there after the Trojan War to create a new home - say in the southern Appalachians or western Pennsylvania or Ohio maybe.

And finally, there's this really crazy idea out there of the Aztecs being descended from one of the lost tribes of Israel. It's completely ridiculous, but if you want to embrace it full on, you could just turn central Mexico into a full blown replica of Ancient Israel, complete with a Temple and priest hood and Kabbalah using Native American Lions of Zion.

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly. That is the first law of nature.
Voltaire, "Tolerance" (1764)

Comment

How about "Empower humanity & Not depower everyone else" school of thought?

Well if they Purge the High Guild instead of the Craftmasons...

One of my biggest concerns with Technocracy is that they made themselves indispensable and started only to empower themselves, working as a watchdogs to weak, frail and apathetic humanity. Which they made that way.

The other, which is more applicable here is... the order of Reason is Humanity Fuck yeah! They have made a conscious choice to drive out the spirits, and kill the fairies. Now here's the thing, they might be right. Humanity might be better off without faries. Humanity might be better off without Spirits. And humanity sure as hell would be better off without Kindred.

The Order of Reason looked at Dragons eating virgins and said "NO MORE" and if that price was the blood of a thousand unicorns well that is what needed to be done.

Order of Reason has enough good intentions to turn the other way, given the right circumstances. And as you said, there are not enough of people, who think that fairies should die and other cultures need to be subsumed. Even within Order of Reason.

There are legit Dreamers and do-gooders in there.

No, there are enough members of the Order of Reason who think all faries need to die, the spirits aren't our allies, and that cultures that aren't European(or Asian sometimes) are lesser peoples. That's what makes them the Order of Reason. Even the Traditions are Kind of Racist about cultures and heavily European biased.

The Order of Reason is built on the back of Murder, its what forces the Council of Nine to form. IF it was just "your magic isn't sciencey enough" it wouldn't have gotten that far. I mean if they could negotiate why didn't the Craftmasons stay with the Order of Hermes and reform it from within? PErhaps the craftmasons get a hint of what's coming for them? So they and some of the others like House Golo basically form Protoetherites early. They become a disparate faction from the Order of Reason, when the Solfacti fall they may get courted into the council?

The second point which confuses me, is I could more readily see the modern Technocracy be more fairy friendly than the Order of Reason just after the second war of seasons. It was one of the many things that drove the Order to act. Much like the Inquisition taking down much of Kindred society. So they just saw the faries blow up whole chunks of the worlds so they know how dangerous they are.

Perhaps some deals are made? Your more acceptable types make deals to aid the growth of the Order of Reason and suddenly we have another factional war for the Kithain certain ones have protection from banality as they are "real" by all logical accounts.

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As a thought: As a point of divergence, the Craftmasons do not go to war against the Order of Hermes in the early 13th century. Later that century, when the Mercy Schism happens, it is the Voices of Mercy/Celestial Chorus who come out on top rather than the Cabal of Pure Thought. This results in a Catholic Church more interested in redemption and reconciliation with heresy than in punishment and crusades. So while you may have some sort of ties established between the Craftmasons and Artificers (building things), the Celestial Masters and the Explorers (seeking new places), and maybe the Cosions and the Solificati (improving humanity), they're not really doing this at the expense of any other faction. Meanwhile, the Gabrialites are this weird fringe group (as are the Society of Leopold), and the High Guild are totally focused on themselves and making money while not upsetting any of the existing apple carts.

(This sort of thing might result in a Vampire set up where there was no Anarch Revolt and the War of Princes is still going on in the 15th or 16th century.)

Incidentally, you may want to have the shift in Changeling history have a mystical effect on the planet, specifically there not being a Little Ice Age starting in the 13th century. This would largely eliminate the famine in Europe, and with a little more mystical handwaving, you can eliminate or severely downplay the effects of the Black Death as well. It also ups the probability of surviving Norse settlements in North America.

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly. That is the first law of nature.
Voltaire, "Tolerance" (1764)

Comment

As a thought: As a point of divergence, the Craftmasons do not go to war against the Order of Hermes in the early 13th century. Later that century, when the Mercy Schism happens, it is the Voices of Mercy/Celestial Chorus who come out on top rather than the Cabal of Pure Thought. This results in a Catholic Church more interested in redemption and reconciliation with heresy than in punishment and crusades. So while you may have some sort of ties established between the Craftmasons and Artificers (building things), the Celestial Masters and the Explorers (seeking new places), and maybe the Cosions and the Solificati (improving humanity), they're not really doing this at the expense of any other faction. Meanwhile, the Gabrialites are this weird fringe group (as are the Society of Leopold), and the High Guild are totally focused on themselves and making money while not upsetting any of the existing apple carts.

(This sort of thing might result in a Vampire set up where there was no Anarch Revolt and the War of Princes is still going on in the 15th or 16th century.)

Incidentally, you may want to have the shift in Changeling history have a mystical effect on the planet, specifically there not being a Little Ice Age starting in the 13th century. This would largely eliminate the famine in Europe, and with a little more mystical handwaving, you can eliminate or severely downplay the effects of the Black Death as well. It also ups the probability of surviving Norse settlements in North America.

I definitely like the idea of decentralized Technocentric factions.

But each change requires considering as much the butterflies as possible.

Thank you for your contribution!

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Hmm. In North America (Avalon? Arcadia? Atlantis? Concordia? Turtlevania?) you have a Norse-Wabanaki Vineland Confederacy (full of Alfar, Trolls, dwarf-like Nockers, May-may-gway-shi, Thought-Crafters, Valdaerman, Spirit-Talkers, and werewolves lurking in the background), a Welsh-Powhatten Kingdom of Madoc in Virginia and Maryland that has a strong King Arthur and the Knights of Camelot feel (Sidhe, Nockers, Pooka, Nanehi, the Old Faith/Gardeners of the Tree, maybe more mystic oriented knights of the Messianic Voices, Hermetics of House Mariana and maybe even surviving House Diedne), a secret monastery of immortal Knights Templar hidden in the See of Grass/Everglades (Maybe there are native "mummy"/immortals there as well, being long time guardians of the Fountain of Youth), an Amazon-Anishinaabe Sisterhood of the Three Fires in Michigan and Wisconsin (Sisters of Hippylita, Satyrs, Dreamspeakers/Spirit-Talkers, native Nunnehi), a fairly strong Iroquois Nation/Empire in much of New York, Pennsylvania and surrounding areas, a Muskogee nation in the Southeast along the Gulf, and lets throw in a colony of semi-pagan Basque expatriates in Cuba.

Let's say that in Europe, Spain never unified, so you've still got rival kingdoms of Leon, Aragon and so on. Christopher Columbus, rather than being an explorer, believes his divinely ordained destiny is to lead a crusade to save Constantinople - which still hasn't fallen, be it by luck or by virtue of not having been sacked by crusaders at the behest of Venice - from the Turks. So Spain still has a fair amount of Jews and even Muslims because there's no state run inquisition (Lions of Zion and Ahl i Batin, as well as assorted Hermetics, Craftmason-Artificers, the Jerbiton-High Guild alliance, Zolo-Aetherics, and a much more prevalent Messianic Voices/Celestial Chorus). France never had a crusade against the Cathars, which means that southern France is still largely independent from Paris and has it's own flourishing cultures of troubadours, weird mystery cults and wandering faeries. Henry Cabot, sponsored by England, is the guy who "discovered" the New World, reestablishing contact with Vineland and the Kingdom of Madoc. I'm not sure what else would be going on. But I think it would be kind of cool to have Poland as a political power maybe. This may, perhaps be a world where the Mongols never made it so far west, so you still have an unconquered Kievian culture in the east, full of Bogatyrs, dragons, forest spirits, and followers of old faiths.

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly. That is the first law of nature.
Voltaire, "Tolerance" (1764)

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It was something I pulled out of the air. "Turtle Island" was one of those almost farcical attempts to give a non-European PC name to the continent back in the 90s; "-vania" meaning "woods" (as in Pennsylvania = "Penn's Woods" and Transylvania = "Beyond the Woods").

Speaking of Transylvania, a setting of this nature demands - Demands, I say! - that Wallachia be ruled by an openly vampiric Vlad the Impaler/Dracula.

A pity he comes 100 years too late, as Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor (b1552-d1612) would be perfect for this sort of setting, which his interest in alchemy, astronomy and art would make Prague a center of mystical scholarship. The same for Elizabeth I, the Faerie Queene.

Still, in the late 1400s/early 1500s, you've got Leonardo da Vinci, the Borgia, the Medici, the Tudors, and other sources of fun.

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly. That is the first law of nature.
Voltaire, "Tolerance" (1764)

Comment

Might i suggest a timeline that pushes into a Techno-Mythic Age might have a quicker Ressurgence? Also how would you handle Banality in general? There's alot of similarly timed situations that lead to the end of the Mythic age at its low point and Rise of the Age of Reason(even if that gives a buff to magick briefly) as fewer of them seem to hit at the same time I imagine things get pulled back to a more. Perhaps the the War of the Seasons happens quicker than other situations for other groups it becomes the warning that causes them to pull back.

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Various situations hit at the same time leading to an End of what the Mages call the Mythic age. You have the Shattering. You have the Fourth Great Maelstrom. You have the Inquisition and the Anarch Revolt and of course you have the Order of Reason. You also have the black Death and bunch of other things. If you don't have say the Black Death you don't have the Fourth Great Maelstrom.

Now since most of these things sort of happened at the same time if you make say the shattering happen first, other supernaturals might be less willing to make the Push having seen the destruction caused by that war. Thus you could justify a more pluralistic Awakened society(I still think for example there's probably a push towards "We need to keep shit from getting out of control" but your Council/Order might have vastly different members). Vampires who try to Rein shit in before the Anarch Revolt spirals out might still look like the courts of the Long Night. This is before taking into account the changes to normal mortal society that's being presented.

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Random Thought: So, about 1000 AD, the Hermetic House of Tremere somehow manage to convince House Guernicus and House Flambeau that House Diedne had fallen to infernalism. But, suppose that Diedne managed to turn the tables and prove that House Tremere was playing everyone for fools to cover for the fact that their founder and several of his inner circle had turned themselves into vampires. As a result, House Tremere is broken, it's apprentices shuffled into other Houses or Ex Misc and most of it's leadership executed or forced into exile, becoming this fringe band of magi apart from everyone else. Meanwhile, House Diedne still exists as this mix of ancient Welsh druidism and Roman era Hermeticism, but when Prince Madoc goes off to establish his own land in North America, a large majority of the House decide to relocate there, possibly taking a number of Bjornaer and Meritina (say, the ones still more into nature magic than faerie stuff) with them. So, in this one North American kingdom, you have this large Awakened society of druids, shape-shifters and nature mages who are probably able to at least exist in relative non-hostility with native medicine societies/spirit talkers (and probably not butt heads too often with the Nordic rune wizards and seidr witches in Vineland).

Meanwhile, in vampire-land, the Salubri still exist as one of the High Clans, and there never ends up being any sort of large scale conflict between the Order of Hermes and the undead at the start of the 13th century.

Also, the idea that if there is no crusade again the Cathars, then it's conceivable that by the 15th or 16th century, the southern part of France may still be completely independent of Paris as it's own Kingdom of Occitania/Aquitaine. Also, perhaps an independent Kingdom of Burgundy. (Balkanizing Western Europe - and some other areas, like say Russia - open up a lot of potential for interesting, if not outright weird, nation states and cultures. )

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly. That is the first law of nature.
Voltaire, "Tolerance" (1764)